Jamaican Life

February 4, 2007

I’ve done two weeks of my service so far. I have been working 9 hours a week at the Alpha Boys School in Kingston, but starting this week I will be doing 18 hours a week. The Alpha Boys School is a school for boys between the ages of 8 and 18. The boys come to Alpha to specialize in a trade like music, tailoring, carpentry, etc. and the school’s goal is to prepare the boys so that they can get a job immediately after graduation. The school is for boys that have “fallen through the cracks” and have problems with discipline, manners, etc. The school is run more like military school than a public school because the boys all live there and are not allowed off campus (it’s surrounded by a 10-foot high fence with barbed wire lining the top), they sleep in one large room, have a dining hall, etc. The boys have all either been orphans or have had abusive parents. All students attending the school have done so because of a court order, whether it be for care and protection or discipline or structure or shelter.

I have been working with the music teacher (and you can read about my experiences in the journal entry I wrote for class below), and I’m helping teach music theory and conduct the band. The regular band is at about a middle-school level and the advanced band is at about a high school level. Most of the boys join the military band when they graduate, but Alpha is known for its training of several famous musicians, the most well known being Don Drummond, the original trombone player for the Skatalites (and the main composer in the early days). The school has been around for over 125 years.

The campus is really run down. There are broken blinds on the windows (windows don’t have glass so without the blinds it’s basically just a hole in the wall with bars over it), random holes in walls and no pavement – just dirt. Apparently the school experienced some severe damage after a series of hurricanes a few years ago and the library was destroyed. The school consists of several small buildings and a large grass field (all the grass is dead though), and there are clotheslines all over the place. Clearly, there is no air-conditioning in any of the buildings. The school is a Catholic school and is overseen by Sister, an old white woman who is missing several teeth and yells at the boys all day. I’ve never seen her smile. She seems very nice but I have never gotten the chance to meet her formally.

Stage 5: Taking Up the Challenges
Sana Hasan

My arrival at the Alpha Boys School did not elicit an enthusiastic reaction from Mr. Foran. I don’t even know what Mr. Foran’s formal title is, but he seems to think that he is pretty much in charge of the school. Mr. Foran, since the day that we did the agency tours, seemed skeptical of UTech students volunteering their time, and I’d soon find out that he was even more skeptical of having a female in a classroom with the boys. After each day of work I’m supposed to report to him and reflect on my experience. For the entire first week he asked me questions like, “Where is that boy Cliff that was so enthusiastic about working here?” and “Are you sure that the boys are okay with a young girl teaching them?” Although I was slightly offended by his persistence in pointing out that I was a female, I responded carefully and politely. Luckily, I’ve had previous experience dealing with sexism, so these comments were nothing new to me.

Mr. Martin, the music teacher, was a completely different story. On my first day, he introduced me to the class, then left the room saying, “They’re all yours.” I felt completely abandoned at that moment, as I have never taught an entire class, much less a bunch of “delinquents” and “women-haters” as Mr. Foran would say. But Mr. Martin seemed overly accepting of me, and was anxious to put me to work. So, for three hours I lectured on key signatures, did some major/minor ear training and explained the circle of fifths. The next day, Mr. Martin disappeared for forty-five minutes, where he was apparently in a meeting with my biggest fan, Mr. Foran. During that time, the band was supposed to warm up. It took the band about ten minutes to tune, after which they proceeded to obnoxiously blast loud noises from their instruments and doodle. I stepped up to the plate and tuned the band. Next thing I know, Mr. Martin returns with a baton and the title of a song, and leaves me to rehearse it with the band. I have never taken a course on conducting, so obviously I was very uncomfortable.

The reaction from the boys was also very warm. It is clear that the boys enjoy having a teacher that uses more positive reinforcement than negative feedback. The Alpha Boys School seems more like a military school than a school where children come to learn a trade. All of the administrators and teachers seem to yell at the children. Mr. Martin even hit a steady beat into a child’s back because he was having difficulties playing drums with the rest of the band. I try to keep a smile on my face and use as much positive reinforcement as possible because it seems to be working with the boys. The last day of my first week, several boys approached me and asked me questions about America and of myself. The asked me questions about how long I’d be here, if I could replace Mr. Martin altogether and if I could learn how to play alto sax so I could teach them.

Mr. Foran’s negative reaction seemed to be fostered by the way he views the children. Whether his impression comes from first-hand experience, past experience at a different institution or even rumors, it is clear that he does not have a lot of faith in the boys’ behavior. The situation that I found myself in was perpetuated by Mr. Foran’s lack of trust in females. Mr. Foran is deceptively sexist, as he has an English accent and he’s really white – whiter than anyone I’ve seen in Jamaica this far (besides maybe Sister) – so it appears that he hasn’t lived in Jamaica for very long. Before he said anything negative to me, I was excited because I figured that he would be more accustomed to having volunteers and females in the workplace than other Jamaican institutions. WRONG. He obviously has very little trust in me working with the children. It is very interesting, however, that Mr. Foran’s trust in my capabilities drastically increased when I asked for more hours and he assigned me the troublesome secretarial work that he’s been working on for months. I feel like Mr. Foran is a very shallow and selfish man, and I’m finding it very difficult to work with him and view him as my superior. Working for someone you don’t like is difficult, but working for someone you don’t respect is impossible.

I realize now that Mr. Martin was probably so accepting of me because he is in dire need of help. Mr. Martin is the only music teacher in the school and he is in charge of teaching music theory and band to about thirty boys. This normally wouldn’t be too difficult, except that there are two bands – an advanced composed of ten students and a general band composed of twenty. Because the advanced band is used for fundraising events for the school, it rehearses more than the general band, and the only time to do this rehearsal is when the general band is learning theory. That is why Mr. Martin left me alone on the first day – because he does that every day while he teaches the advanced band. I’m wondering now how he was able to teach theory at all to these boys, but I’m happy that I’m there now to help because I’m sure that I can teach them much more in the same amount of time that Mr. Martin could have because I will actually be there to teach, instead of writing notes on the board without explaining them.

The positive reaction of the boys is clearly due to their neglect at home and school. It seems that they don’t have anyone to really look up to that believes in them. Mr. Foran thinks they’re all delinquents, Mr. Martin is stressed out because they don’t know how to keep a beat and their parents are the ones that sent them away to this school – and many student’s haven’t seen their parents since their arrival. I think that I seem like a much more tangible mentor figure than anyone else in their lives. I try to chat with the boys to get to know them and their interests individually, I try to use humor while I teach and I haven’t had the need to get angry or yell at the boys – that is the only way that I’ve seen Mr. Martin associate with them.

While working with these locals, I’ve been getting very mixed reactions, all of which would probably be absent in America. If I was Mr. Foran, I would welcome a University student to volunteer at my school – free labor! And if I were Mr. Martin, I would never let a stranger get up in front of my class and run it on the first day that I met her – especially if I had never seen her qualifications! And if I was a student in America, I’d be upset because my money was going to someone less qualified than Mr. Martin. Clearly though, this is not America, and most of my expectations went unmet. In fact, one of my expectations was that the Alpha Boys School would not accept me to work there in the first place, and obviously, this was incorrect. I think, however, that the outcome of the situation will be beneficial for everyone. Even if I knew nothing about music theory, there would be a benefit of my working with the students: my presence. And even though Mr. Martin is better qualified than I am on paper, there are a lot of things that I can bring to the boys that Mr. Martin does not know – things like ear training, different ways to learn music, tuning techniques, embouchure, and other things that Mr. Martin is less experienced with. Granted, I’m not the best musician, but my participation in clarinet lessons and band for a decade has allowed me to pick up on how to teach difficult rhythms to a class or how to breathe and support your air while playing, or even techniques for working out difficult phrases. Despite Mr. Foran’s negative impression of me, I am anxious to continue my time at Alpha Boys School because I feel I can leave a positive impression on the students.







Remember when I went to Lime Cay? Well, on the bus on the way home I met two boys, Damion and Robert, and they are students at UTech and some other college that I’m unfamiliar with. Anyway, Robert gave me his phone number but I didn’t do anything with it because I’ve gotten more phone numbers than I can count. A few days later, I saw Robert and Damion at school and we went down to Liguanea to hang out w/the other girls. Long story short, Leann, Rachael, Catherine and I have become very close friends with them. Damion lives with his cousin, Kurt, in Portmore, which is about a half hour from Kingston and the home of Hellshire Beach. So, two weeks ago we met Damion and Robert at Hellshire and hung out for a few hours. While we were at the beach we met Jeremy, one of Robert’s friends. Jeremy graciously took us home from the beach and picked us up later that evening and drove us back to Portmore where we hung out at Damion’s house and learned how to dance to Jamaican music. On the way home that night, at about 2 am, we were driving down Hope Road. Hope Road is kind of like Pacific Ave or El Camino – really busy and separated by an island in the middle of the road. Well, we were on our way home, going about 15 mph because we had been at a stop light, and some crazy driver flys over the island and hits our car. Our car ran up onto the sidewalk and hit a telephone pole. Everyone in both cars – ours and the other driver’s – was fine, but they called the police because it was such a bad accident. As soon as the cops arrived, however, one of them walked over to the group of us white girls across the street, and started flirting. I was shocked that he had the audacity to neglect the accident for a bunch of white girls.

Anyway, we’ve become very good friends with Jeremy, Damion and Robert, and we’ve hung out with them for the past two weekends. Yesterday was the beginning of the Bob Marley Birthday Festival (which goes on all week), and we went with Damion to the Ital Food Festival. Ital food is Rastafarian food and it’s cooked without animal products or salt. It’s basically vegan to the extreme. We got dinner there and I had spiced rice, baked plantain, salad (no dressing) and a delicious ackee and tofu casserole. The festival was paired with a fashion show celebrating Bob Marley, and throughout it they asked trivia questions and gave away prizes like cd’s and ital cookbooks. It was really savage answering the questions because they were mostly easy, like when was B.M. born? How old was he when he died? And stuff like that, so people were rushing the stage and it was difficult to even get your mouth on the microphone to answer the question. However, one of the harder questions was, “what was B.M.’s first ska hit? Of course, being the ska music guru that I am, I knew the answer. I was shocked, however, to see that no one else even attempted to answer it. Anyway, i was super excited when I answered “Simmer Down” correctly and won a cd.

I’ve learned that Jamaicans love to party. In America, when people have parties it’s to celebrate something and it’s in someone’s house. In Jamaica, they party every day except Sunday and it’s usually in a club. Jamaicans love dancing, and they have names for all of the different moves. Red Stripe Beer is the pride of the country and you can buy it anywhere – even in the barbershop while you’re getting your hair done. There are clubs all over the island and there’s a different club for each night of the week – Asylum on Tuesdays, Quad on Wednesdays, Roof on Saturdays…… Anyway, I’m not much of a partier, especially at the clubs, but I’ve gone to a couple with the other girls. It’s crazy because on Ladies Night all over the island, girls get free admission and unlimited drinks until a set time. It’s a big incentive for men and women and those are the craziest nights for clubs. Clubs play mostly rap and dancehall. Dancehall is what came after reggae, and it’s full of electronic sounds, loops and really fast patois that sounds like rap. It’s really hard to describe. At the clubs they always have a big screen TV that plays MTV or some music video channel full of Puff Daddy videos, etc. And style in Jamaica is very interesting. Although it is very similar to the US, there are very few distinctions. In America we have the rockers, the thugs, the preps, etc. and all of them dress differently. In Jamaica there are two basic styles: cool and nothing. The people who dress cool wear lots of camoflauge (because it’s taboo to wear lots of it in this culture), and the people who wear nothing do literally that – wear clothes that show their entire bodies, even more so than in America. And people in Jamaica will party all night long. The party starts at about 1am and goes on until morning. And the other thing about Jamaican parties is that they can be literally anywhere. No one makes noise complaints because music is everywhere, all the time. you can have a party on the beach by pumping up your car stereo and opening the trunk. Many people set up sound systems at bus stop vendors, when you go downtown there’s so much music that it mixes together with other vendors and it gets annoying, and birthday parties are usually in the street with a bunch of big speakers and tons of people dancing. It is so clear how large a role music plays in this culture, and I absolutely love it, even though I’m not a big fan of dancehall. The fact that you can’t go anywhere without hearing a thumping beat and some loud singing is absolutely appealing to me, even if it’s distracting, even if I don’t like the music playing. It’s awesome.

I went to my first concert last week. It was the Bob Marley Birthday Celebration and it started at 8pm with almost 30 artists. We didn’t stay for the entire concert, but what I saw was amazing. It was probably the best concert that I’ve been to in my entire life. The concert was in a big field and there were thousands of people there. There was a big screen that projected what was happening on stage because many people were too far away to see. And the concert was nothing like concerts in America. In America people squish together to get as close to the stage as possible. That’s fun in its own way, especially when you’re at a punk or ska show and everyone jumps and moves together. Here though, people allow each other their own personal space and there was no pushing at all. this was really interesting to me because the sense of touching and personal space in Jamaica is generally much smaller than in America. Anyway, many people in the audience had lighters or Rastafarian flags and they were waving them in the air for the whole concert. Everyone was dancing. Everyone was happy. Everyone wore a smile on their face and everyone was moving to the beat of the bass guitar. It was like the entire audience made up just one big amoeba – we were not a bunch of separate entities, but just one large one. I think that this concert resembled Woodstock69 in so many ways, and I wish that it was longer and that I didn’t have work the next day so I could have stayed for it all. it was absolutely amazing and I will never forget it.